is racing between trusting him and killing him. He’s a watchful man. Except he doesn’t actually watch me. He assesses the air around where I stand, and he has yet to meet my peering eyes.
It’s…odd…very—
“Are you blind?” I blurt suddenly as the interest in me becomes too much.
“I am.” As he confirms it, a shy smile presses to his full lips, and I don’t know why the simple fact makes me trust him even more.
He can’t see me. He has no idea if I’m the most beautiful woman in the world or an ass goblin looking for a new hole to crawl into. It’s exhilarating.
“She’s not nearly as pretty as the Night Witch babbled,” Hell Cunt tells his blind friend.
And though I appreciate that the blind man can’t judge me on my appearance, I’m fucking outraged that this asshole continuously ignores the fact that he’d give his right nut for the chance to inhale my breath during flu season.
There he goes again, wrecking my humbleness.
I release a very quiet, very composed sigh as I meet this gaze.
He fucking smiles.
My middle finger twitches.
While I glare so hard my eyes hurt, the largest of the three men stomps forward. His weight breaks the sticks and twigs beneath his bare feet with so much force it seems impossible he’s just simply walking instead of violently battling nature itself.
When he’s close enough, his big hand comes out and snatches up my jaw. My nails embed into his wrist in the span of a sharp inhale within my throat, and we hold each other in a way that might seem intimate to the naked eye.
Except my jaw hurts, and his flesh beneath my nails is bleeding down his forearm.
Very, very intimate.
He has eyes so pale they’re more white than green. But those bursts of lime are there in his hard gaze as he appraises every little curve of my face. It’s like he’s trying to understand me, trying to read me. I feel the press of his attention. It heats my cheeks, but I refuse to do anything more than glare up at the savage man.
“She’ll do,” he grunts before flinging my face away and stalking back the way he came.
“What the fuck is with you cock knots?” The words spew out before I can stop them.
“Cock knots?” The gentler man repeats with a curl of his lips like he can physically taste those words and they do not appear to taste good.
How do they not get it?
No!
No, I won’t do. I’m not a pig being prepared for the slaughter. I am the most beautifully blessed woman in all the land, and I deserve more communication than manhandling gropes and Neanderthal grunts.
My arm flies out, and the feel of soft, long locks are twisted through my fingers before he even makes it two steps. His balance wavers, but instead of falling, he simply follows the motion of my hand, arching his back severely until he’s looking up at me from an upside-down angle.
“I’m going to ask you very, very calmly to release my hair.” The shadowy scruff along his jaw shifts as though his teeth are grinding with every word he says.
“Never touch a High Hell’s braids,” someone says in a hushed warning.
I disregard both of their comments. “Tell me what you three want from me.” The tension in my arm is taut. I’m ready.
He’s ready.
And yet, neither of us move.
“Rome didn’t tell you?” he barks, keeping his posture in a nearly perfect backbend while losing his composure in his growling tone. “Rome!”
“It didn’t come up,” the asshole with the cruel smirk says.
The kinder man at his side peers over at Rome with disappointment and annoyance in his gaze. It seems in this moment, we all think little Romey is a cock dangler.
The large man settled against my palm closes his eyes as a long and tiring sigh slips from his full lips. A thin scar kisses his mouth along his lower lip, fading into the shining black hair of his beard. Bronze skin is smooth and flawless against hard features.
He’s brutally handsome. So distractingly so, that my fingers loosen their hold, and before I can stop myself, I stroke my palm through his soft hair.
Every strand slides through my long fingers like the finest satin.
Green eyes open so fast that I flinch. Not from fear though. From being caught acting so outrageously stupid.
What is wrong with me?
And why is his hair so well-conditioned? He isn’t a wolf at all but a prized show dog